Immigration Laws Must Be Enforced, Rules SCOTUS, by Chad Groening

An immigration enforcement advocacy organization is praising a Supreme Court ruling that will make it harder for illegal aliens who have been convicted of a crime to avoid deportation.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 5-3 conservative majority that ruled against an illegal alien from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. Clemente Avelino Pereida had been charged in Nebraska with using a fraudulent Social Security card to get a job and was convicted under a state law against criminal impersonation.

Before this ruling, illegal aliens with criminal convictions who were facing deportation could ask the attorney general to allow them to remain in the country if the conviction was not for a serious crime and if the person had lived in America at least 10 years, among other criteria. But in this case, Gorsuch wrote that Pereida failed to prove that he was not convicted of a serious crime. …